


Thrown off balance (but just by you)

by Heath17_KO5



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22883899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heath17_KO5/pseuds/Heath17_KO5
Summary: Tobin is good with girls. She's smooth and she's charming and she doesn't have any trouble, except when it comes to Christen. So of course Kelley catches on and decides to play wingwoman.
Relationships: Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 21
Kudos: 475





	Thrown off balance (but just by you)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been feeling off about writing T and C recently, so even though I have to wips for them I haven't wanted to work on them. Still kind of feeling out continuing them. But this was my attempt at writing them again. Just something short and fluffy. I don't know exactly when it's set, but a while ago. Thanks blake0tyler for the prompt. Hope you guys enjoy.  
x

“Oh my god! I could kiss you right now!”

She doesn’t mean it. Tobin KNOWS she doesn’t mean it. Not like that. She’s just happy that Tobin found her phone. And that was really just luck. She caught a glimpse of the case under the bench on the field and recognized it. (Recognized it because she’s spent far too long shooting furtive glances Christen’s way when she was preoccupied with her phone so wouldn’t notice.) She caught a glimpse of the case, but Christen was already gone, so she’d picked it up and pocketed it (and then forgotten about it because lunch with Lindsey and a long shower after). She’d forgotten so she hadn’t returned it right away, and then she’d reached into her sweatshirt pocket when she’d put it back on later and there it was, and she didn’t know that Christen had been searching desperately for it for the better part of an hour once she’d realized it was gone. 

So here she is, handing it back, feeling a bit sheepish that she’s had it for a few hours now, feeling silly that she actually forgot that she had the phone of the most gorgeous girl she’s ever seen in her pocket, feeling her cheeks flush because Christen’s relief at getting her phone back made her say, “I could kiss you right now!”

She couldn’t though. She doesn’t. 

Obviously. 

“Sorry. I found it on the field earlier and I meant to give it back but-”

“You are a lifesaver, Tobs!” she declares, the nickname falling so easily from her lips, like she’s said it a thousand times before, like hearing it hasn’t just made Tobin’s heart stutter. 

“No, I should’ve brought it straight to you. Sorry,” she mumbles again, reaching back to rub the back of her neck, wishing that she could instruct her feet to turn around and leave before she can get any more embarrassed, before she can make a fool of herself. 

Christen is already scrolling through missed messages, and really Tobin has done what she came here to do. There’s no reason for her to stay. 

“No, really. I thought I was going to have to go out and buy a new one and then I was thinking if it was stolen how much information I actually have on it and just- ! Ugh! Thank you so much! I’m so glad it was you that found it!”

And then Christen is throwing her arms around her neck and holding her close, and Tobin pats her back a little uncertainly, telling herself that she just means she was glad it was Tobin instead of a stranger, not that it was Tobin specifically. She tells herself not to close her eyes and breathe in deeply. She tells herself she doesn’t already know that Christen smells like coconut and plumeria. She tells herself that one deep breath isn’t really a big deal because breathing is kind of important anyway. 

Christen pulls away and Tobin lets her. 

Obviously. 

“Right, well, anyway, I’m glad you’ve got it back now, so I’ll just-” Tobin motions to the door behind her, but her feet still aren’t getting the message and she is fully aware of Kelley smirking at her from the far bed. 

Kelley who’s known her for far too long. Kelley who’s seen her pick up girls no problem. Kelley who’s 100% been sexiled before thanks to Tobin’s smooth-talking and natural charisma, absolutely none of which is currently on display. 

Kelley is smirking like this is the funniest fucking thing she’s ever gotten the good-fortune to witness. 

“No. Wait! Did you want to hang out? We’re just watching a movie. Kelley’s pick, so it’s not great-”

“Hey!” Kelley protests. 

“But you can hang out if you want.”

“Um, thanks, but Al’s waiting on me to play another round of Monopoly Deal, so…”

“Oh. Okay. Well, we’ll be here if you change your mind!” Christen says with a smile.

Tobin flips Kelley off when Christen turns around and Kelley blows her a kiss. 

“Bye Tobito! Tell Al, I’ve got next game!”

Tobin glares, then turns and walks out of the room. 

When the hotel door shuts with a solid-sounding click behind her she leans back against it and mutters, “Idiot,” to herself under her breath. 

(She tells herself that she doesn’t hear Christen’s voice saying, “I could kiss you” over and over in her head for the rest of the night.)

  
  


“So Christen, huh?” Kelley asks, dropping down on the grass beside her to lace up her cleats. 

“Shut up,” Tobin grumbles, already feeling her cheeks color. This isn’t her. She doesn’t get tongue-tied over a girl. She doesn’t blush at the drop of a hat. This is not who she is. 

“How long have you had the hots for my college best friend?”

“Kelley!” Tobin warns. 

“Oh my God, has this been since college? When we played for Pali Blues together?”

Tobin can feel her cheeks turning a brighter shade of red, can feel the heat spreading down her neck. She hopes nobody else around them notices. 

“It has! Hasn’t it?! That’s why you used to invite her to the beach every morning even though she doesn’t surf! Oh my God, I can’t believe I missed it!” Kelley’s laughing. She WOULD find this funny. Why did she have to have been Christen’s roommate right now? Why did she have to be there when Tobin had gone to return the phone yesterday? Anyone else probably wouldn’t have noticed how weird she was being. 

(Okay, they might have, but they wouldn’t have SAID anything about it.)

“This is great! No, this is AMAZING!”

“Kelley, I’m going to murder you,” Tobin threatens, her fingers pulling angirly at her laces. 

“No you’re not,” Kelley declares, sounding very sure of herself for someone that Tobin is contemplating slide tackling just to get her out of camp. 

Tobin looks at her and raises an eyebrow. 

“If you murder me, who’s gonna help you get the girl?” Kelley asks, a glint in her eye that Tobin has come to recognize as meaning that they’re probably about to get into trouble. 

Tobin shakes her head, already wary. “Kelley, no.”

“Tobin, YES!” Kelley counters, jumping to her feet. 

“Kelley!” Tobin tries again, but Kelley is bouncing over to Alex and Hope with a grin on her face, and Tobin just knows, she KNOWS, that this is all going to end horribly. 

  
  


“Kelley is being weird.”

Tobin jumps at Christen’s voice beside her and when she glances to the side, she sees Christen standing with her hand on her hip, eyes squinting to where Kelley is doing a silly dance with HAO. She’s framed perfectly by the setting sun, and Tobin suddenly has a new appreciation for double days because it means that she gets to see Christen in this golden hour lighting. If she’s stunning normally, she’s drop dead gorgeous like this. “Kelley’s always weird,” she manages to reply, and Christen lets out a small laugh that shoots warmth straight through Tobin’s chest. 

“Okay, true. But she’s being weird even by Kelley’s standards.”

Tobin closes her eyes for a moment. She knows exactly why Kelley is being weird, but she doesn’t know HOW she’s being weird and that thought is more than a little alarming given their conversation this morning. 

“Weird how?” she asks, and she’s impressed that her voice sounds normal. She shouldn’t be impressed, though. She KNOWS how to talk to girls. She knows how to flirt, how to charm, how to lean in slowly with that air of confidence that makes them lean in the rest of the way and close the distance and officially make the first move. But with Christen-

“I don’t know. She’s like more all over the place than usual. One minute she’s reminiscing about college and the next she’s saying how I should take you out for coffee for finding my phone and then she’s talking about that gelato place we would go to after practice when we played for Pali Blues that one summer, and I- Like she’s hard to follow sometimes anyway, but I felt like I was doing mental gymnastics trying to follow the conversation.”

Tobin takes a long slow breath. It’s so much worse than she’d anticipated. Kelley is apparently about as subtle as a brick to the face. She should have known. And Christen is no doubt going to assume that Tobin is just as weird by association. Tobin should really stick closer to ARod and Cheney. They’re more settled. They’re calmer. They’re maybe marginally less likely to interfere in her love life. They also don’t know about this crush. Or sort of crush. Or...whatever it is. She forces out a laugh. “Ha. Yeah. That’s Kel.” She doesn’t dare risk a glance at Christen. She doesn’t want to know if she’s looking to her for more of a reaction. She doesn’t want to know if Christen can tell that she’s blushing. 

“Taking you out for a thank you coffee was a good idea though,” Christen says in a thoughtful tone of voice, and Tobin DOES risk a glance then. 

Christen is still looking at Kelley, the stray curls of hair around her face catching the light and practically glowing, a thin sheen of sweat on her face from practice doing nothing to temper her natural beauty. The sight takes Tobin’s breath away. Just for a moment. 

“It was?” 

Christen smiles and her eyes flick to Tobin, the grey-green catching the light in a way that’s so fucking radiant Tobin has to look away. “Yeah. Seriously, you saved me a world of headaches by finding it. I am definitely going to keep better track of it from now on. Do you have plans for later?” 

“Ice bath? Sleep?” She could smack herself in the forehead for that answer. Christen is actively asking to spend time with her and she’s talking about recovery, making it sound like she can’t spare the time, like she’s not remotely interested. 

But Christen giggles. 

It’s a fucking magical sound. Tobin could listen to it forever. 

“I meant besides that.” 

“Oh, um, no. That was- Not really.”

“So coffee maybe isn’t the best option so late, but how do you feel about hot chocolate?” Christen asks. 

“Yum. Yeah. I mean, I like it.”

Tobin looks at her again, just quickly, she doesn’t want to stare. (She doesn’t trust that she’ll be able to look away if she looks for too long.) Christen is smiling at her. It’s a little smile, a cross between amused and shy. 

Tobin offers a smile back. 

“Great. Well, maybe we can share the ice bath and then go get some hot chocolate somewhere. I think Cheney said she found a place the other day. I’ll ask her.”

Tobin chokes. She chokes on air. 

It’s not like she’s never shared an ice bath. She shares ice baths all the time. Her and Cheney and ARod in what is essentially an oversized bucket. Or her and Alex in an actual bath, legs slotted on either side of each other. Or Hope and Kelley and HAO all trying to outdo each other in how long they can stand the cold. But Christen-

The idea of Christen and a bath so close to each other in Tobin’s mind-

Her skin feels hot and her chest feels tight and she’s choking on air, coughing and trying to recover, trying to not seem like a complete and total idiot. 

“You okay?” Christen asks, voice laced with concern. 

“Yep. Fine. Just choked. Totally fine,” she croaks. 

Christen looks unconvinced, but then Dawn is blowing her whistle and telling them their next drill and Tobin gets to have a ball at her feet and that is so much easier to focus on. 

  
  


She specifically doesn’t look at Christen’s abs. It’s not like she hasn’t seen them. It’s not like they haven’t been changing in the same locker room for a while now. It’s not like she isn’t in the exact same state of undress, shirt rolled up to her sports bra, towel wrapped around her shoulders for a hint of warmth, shorts pushed up high on her legs. 

It’s just-

Christen looks like THAT in her rolled up shirt and pushed up shorts with THOSE thighs brushing against hers legs in the small tub. There’s not enough space for them to spread out and not touch. 

Tobin closes her eyes and tries not to feel too much. 

“Are you tired?” Christen asks. 

“Hmm?” Tobin asks, opening her eyes and almost instantly regretting it when Christen’s slight smirk and focussed green eyes meet her gaze. 

It’s a lot. It’s a lot considering that her legs are pressed against Christen’s and she’s already feeling tense from the cold and there is just SO MUCH of Christen’s skin on display. 

She swallows thickly as Christen repeats her question. 

“Oh. No. Just- Trying to tolerate the cold a little longer,” Tobin lies. 

Five minutes have never felt so long. 

“I thought Kel was going to complain when I called our tub for this, but she seemed pretty happy to go bug Al,” Christen says with a laugh. 

“Kelley enjoys the opportunity to bug anyone,” Tobin replies without thinking, and when Christen laughs harder, her leg bumping into Tobin’s, she’s glad she said it. 

“She’s not that bad. She’s a good friend, really,” Christen counters with a fond smile when she’s stopped laughing. 

Tobin sighs. “Yeah. I know.” And she does. She really does. She remembers late night conversations in hotel rooms similar to this when she knows for a fact she’d woken Kelley up, but Kelley never acted like she had. Nights spent talking about anything and nothing to avoid thinking about the anxiety before a big match. Nights spent sharing favorite songs when family felt a little too far away and home sounded like a foreign concept. 

She’s known Kelley for a very long time, after all. 

“Sometimes I forget that you knew her first,” Christen says. 

And Tobin frowns. The comment catches her off-guard. She’s not really sure why. Maybe it’s just the idea that Christen thinks about her. Or her and Kelley, anyway. 

“We were so close at Stanford, but then when we played together that summer...I was a little envious. Not gonna lie. The way you two interacted, the way you played off of each other, fed balls to each other with this practiced ease, the way you’d go out and surf in the mornings and come back so chilled out and laughing while all I could do was stress about goals I didn’t score and minutes I didn’t get. And seeing the easy connection, how you two clearly knew each other so well-”

Tobin bites her lip. She doesn’t want to ask what she really wants to know. She doesn’t want to press for information that Christen might not want to give her. Instead she waits, she watches the way that Christen’s jaw clenches for a moment, before she smiles and shakes her head, the way her eyes are staring past Tobin at white of the shower wall, but they’re not focussed like she’s not seeing it at all. 

“I was still in that place where I’d forgotten why I loved soccer. Like my performance was all that mattered and it was never good enough.”

“You were ALWAYS so good,” Tobin blurts, because she can’t not. 

She’s been watching Christen play for years and, yes, she’s gotten better, she brings more obvious joy to the game now, but she was always good, always the fastest out there, always so technical, her finishes always a thing of beauty. 

It’s one of the first things that drew her to Christen in the first place. 

It’s Christen’s turn to bite her lip as she offers Tobin a shy smile. 

And then Tobin’s alarm goes off and Christen is saying, “Oh thank GOD! I’m freezing!” and she’s standing up, ice and water cascading off of her toned abs and muscular thighs that are now so directly in Tobin’s line of vision. 

Her breath catches in her throat and she lets Christen climb out first because suddenly she feels like actually maybe she needs another few seconds in the ice so that she can cool down. 

  
  


The barista is cute and she’s definitely trying to flirt with Tobin. Normally Tobin would probably flirt back. 

But Christen is standing beside her looking at her with one eyebrow raised and a small smile on her face. Christen is standing beside her in a green top that both accentuates her eyes and shows off her collarbones. Christen is standing next to her in fitted jeans that hug her ass perfectly and make Tobin’s mouth go a little dry. Really, it’s just that Christen is standing next to her. 

So she thanks the barista for her hot chocolate with whipped cream and doesn’t glance back as she and Christen make their way over to a loveseat in the corner and settle next to each other. 

“You know she was angling for your number, right?” Christen asks. 

And it’s not a date. Tobin KNOWS it’s not a date. And yet her mouth blurts out, “Yeah, but why would I want it when I’m here with the prettiest girl around.”

It’s exactly the type of line that she would have said to anybody else, but Christen is decidedly NOT anybody else, so Tobin immediately slaps her hand over her mouth and her eyes go wide. She doesn’t dare look directly at Christen but she can see her out of the corner of her eye, and her eyes a little wide, too, and there’s still that smused smile on her lips, maybe edging a little closer to a smirk. 

“Wow,” Christen comments after a pause that lingers a second too long. “I’d heard you were smooth, but wow.”

Tobin doesn’t feel like she’s smooth. She feels like she’s ridiculous. She feels like she’s acting like the biggest idiot on the planet. She feels like -

“Wait you heard I was smooth?” Her hand falls to her lap and her brows furrow together and she looks a little more directly at Christen.

She looks at Christen enough to see the hint of a blush on Christen’s cheeks as she ducks her head. 

“Yeah, well, you know- Teammates gossip,” Christen mumbles. 

Tobin’s trying to think if she’s ever heard Christen mumble before. She’s so well-spoken. So articulate. It’s always intimidated Tobin a little bit, if she’s being honest. 

“About me?” Tobin presses. 

Christen’s cheeks color a bit more and Tobin feels a surge of warmth, a surge of power, that maybe, just maybe, she’s causing the most beautiful woman in the world to blush. She leans in a little more, her knee bumping against Christen’s, just a little, just a point of contact, but she can see the way Christen swallows hard, she can trace the swallow down Christen’s throat, and she thinks maybe-

“I mean sometimes. Your name comes up,” Christen replies. She reaches out with long fingers and wraps them around her mug of hot cocoa, brings it to her mouth, hiding behind it a little, her eyes flicking up to meet Tobin’s through the steam coming off of it as she breathes in the scent of chocolate. 

Tobin can almost hear the, “Sometimes I bring you up” confession. Almost. But maybe it’s just wishful thinking on her part. Maybe Christen doesn’t really mean anything by it. She’s right. The team is full of gossips. They spend so much time together, it’s impossible not to end up all up in each other’s lives. Maybe Christen was just blushing because Tobin was making her uncomfortable. Maybe Tobin should still apologize for the obvious line before. 

“Sorry about- I didn’t mean- Well, I mean, I DID mean because you’re, you know, gorgeous. I mean, look at you. But obviously I wasn’t implying- I mean I know this isn’t-” Tobin rubs the back of her neck and sucks in a deep breath and wishes that her reputation as smooth wasn’t failing her so horribly now. 

Christen is definitely smirking at her now, smirking at how she’s flailing for words, her mug of cocoa held a little lower now, no longer covering her mouth. 

“You’re cute when you’re flustered,” Christen says. 

Cute. Christen thinks she’s cute. 

Not that she really means anything by it. It’s not like- She’s not FLIRTING. 

Obviously. 

“Shut up,” Tobin mumbles. It’s what she’d say to Kelley or Pinoe or ARod, so it’s what she says to Christen, but with Christen she’s blushing. With Christen she feels the need to look away and pick up her mug of cocoa and take a sip even though it’s still too hot and she burns her tongue and gets whipped cream on her nose in one undignified swoop. 

“Ow! Fuck!” Tobin flinches, the tip of her tongue burning enough that she sticks it out, trying to cool it off. 

“You okay?” Christen asks through a giggle. 

Tobin nods, but then she’s very, very not okay, because Christen is reaching out towards her and her fingers are warm as they wipe the whipped cream off of the tip of her nose, and then she’s biting her lip and looking at Tobin like maybe- Like she sort of-

Tobin coughs. She coughs because she’s forgotten to breathe while she’s looking at Christen and when she coughs her hand shakes. Her hand holding her still very full mug of hot cocoa shakes and it spills onto her thigh and, God, it is still so very, very hot, and she yelps loud enough that people nearby turn to look at them. 

And Tobin knows she’s blushing ridiculously now. Her face is bright red and her leg hurts and the tip of her tongue hurts and she has honestly never been LESS smooth in her life. Maybe if she prays for it hard enough the love seat will just swallow her up whole and she’ll be able to escape. 

But it doesn’t and she can’t and Christen is taking the mug carefully from her hand and patting at her thigh with some napkins, and saying, “Oh my God, are you okay? Shit, that’s really hot, does it feel like it burned? Should we go? Do you need to take the jeans off so we can take care of that?”

And Christen is touching her thigh and talking about her undressing, so now, of course, Tobin chokes. 

Christen is so close, she’s so up in her space, her hand steady on her thigh and her eyes full of concern and Tobin can see the patterns in her irises, could count her eyelashes if she could stop coughing long enough, can practically feel the heat emanating from Christen’s body, they’re so close. 

“I feel like the universe is punishing me for finding your phone,” she jokes when she can kind of breathe again, her voice coming out hoarse. She attempts a small smile, and Christen lets out a small laugh that puffs warmly against Tobin’s cheek. 

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Christen replies.

She’s not moving away. She’s still so very close. Tobin isn’t sure she dares breathe, but not breathing is what got her into trouble with the hot cocoa in the first place so she does. She breathes in and she smells coconut and plumeria and chocolate all mixing together and she thinks it must be what Heaven smells like. 

“How can I help?” Christen asks. 

The words “kiss me” are on the tip of her tongue, and Tobin is smooth with girls, she really is, but she is not smooth with Christen. Not at all. 

“Um, I dunno. Next time maybe we can go out for cold drinks?” 

Christen raises an eyebrow. Still so close. Still up in Tobin’s space. Still making it hard for Tobin to breathe. 

Tobin can make out the individual hairs of her eyebrow, perfectly sculpted just like her cheekbones and the cut of her jaw and-

“Next time?”

If Tobin had stopped blushing at some point, she would have started again now, but she hadn’t, so she just continues to blush as the implication of her words hits her. 

“Are you asking me out, Tobin?” Christen asks. 

“No!” It’s practically shouted at Christen. It’s said way too fast, way too fiercely. It’s 100% the wrong answer. 

Christen leans back and looks surprised. She looks-

There’s a second, just a flash, where Tobin almost thinks- 

It’s probably just her imagination, just wishful thinking, just-

“Oh. Okay. I was just- I was teasing,” Christen says at the same time that Tobin says, “I mean, you know, if we weren’t teammates I would in a heartbeat.”

They both stop. They both stare. Just for a moment. 

Tobin could not have fumbled this non-date more if she tried. 

“So the cocoa here is really good once it’s not so hot it burns your tongue,” she says, desperately trying to salvage things, desperately trying to change the subject, desperately trying to pretend that the last ten minutes did not happen. She says it as she picks her mug back up and angles herself more away from Christen and takes a small, tentative sip. She uses the small provided spoon and takes a small scoop of the remaining whipped cream that hasn’t yet melted into the hot chocolate and eats that. She focuses on the clatter of her spoon as she puts it back on the saucer and the slurping sound of her sips and the way the tip of her tongue is still a bit sensitive.

“How about beers at the end of camp?” Christen asks after what feels like a long lull in conversation but realistically is no longer than a minute, maybe two. 

Tobin has been focussing so hard on the hot chocolate that she doesn’t follow where Christen is coming from. She doesn’t get what Christen is asking. 

“What?” she asks. 

“For our next date,” Christen replies. 

Tobin’s heart beats faster in her chest. She doesn’t mean a DATE date. She means like a friend date. A hangout. A-

Christen’s lips are warm on her cheek. Warm and soft and pressed firmly to her skin. 

“Assuming that’s what you and Kelley have been hinting at…”

“I- We- Kelley- She thought- I-” Tobin looks at Christen. Christen who is biting her lip and looking at her with bright eyes. Christen who has a faint blush back on her cheeks and who just specifically used the words “date” and “our” in very close proximity. Tobin takes a breath and smiles. “Yeah. Beer sounds good.”

  
  


They don’t tell Kelley. 

They agree not to. She’ll get waaaaay too smug about it, and honestly she’s insufferable enough about things like this as it is. 

They don’t tell Kelley and so Kelley spends the rest of camp trying to set them up. She suddenly has to go talk to Abby as soon as the movie comes on that she selected in the first place for the movie night that she arranged. She “forgets” that she promised Alex she’d sit with her instead at dinner. She randomly says things like “You know, Tobin is REALLY good with her hands, too. Not just her feet.” (Which Tobin almost kills her for.)

They don’t tell Kelley because it’s funny, really, to see how hard she’s trying. She’s going out of her way to play wingman, and in some weird way Tobin is kind of touched. 

They don’t tell Kelley until Tobin shows up at their hotel room door, dressed in ripped jeans and her nicest white T-shirt and her leather jacket, a little makeup on. They don’t tell Kelley until Christen swings the door open wearing a cute little black dress that shows off so much of her back that Tobin’s mouth goes dry and the large hoop earrings that Tobin always thinks look so good on her, her eyes gleaming and an excited grin on her face. 

They don’t tell Kelley until Kelley comes and stands at the door next to Christen and looks from one of them to the other and back, realization slowly dawning. 

“Wait, where are you two going?” Kelley demands. 

“Out on a date,” Christen replies casually, like it’s obvious (because it is). Then she adds, “Don’t wait up,” over her shoulder as she loops her arm through Tobin’s and they start down the hallway. 

“Al’s waiting on you for Monopoly Deal!” Tobin informs her just before the door closes, Kelley’s mouth still opening and shutting like a fish as she processes the information. 

They’re almost to the elevators when they hear Kelley shout, “You guys suck! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” down the hallway after them. 

They’re laughing when they climb into the elevator together. 

  
  


Tobin is good with girls. She knows what to say and how to say it. She’s got a certain type of charm and she knows how to use it. 

But with Christen-

They talk about soccer at first. They ease into conversation by talking about the one thing they both know they have in common. They love the game. They love the competition. They love that feeling before a game when anything could happen, when there’s so much potential in the air and the crowd is chanting for them and just the anticipation of everything that’s about to unfold. They love the feeling of the ball at their feet. They love that moment when the ball sails into the back of the net, that split second before the crowd erupts and their teammates rush them. They love the quiet days and nights of practice all by themselves, working on techniques, working on new skills, pushing themselves a little further, a little faster, pushing themselves to be a little better every day. They love stepping onto an empty soccer pitch, feeling the grass beneath their feet, hearing the tap of the ball against their cleats. 

Tobin is good with girls, but she’s great with soccer, so they ease into conversation. They start with what’s comfortable and they go on from there. 

By the time Christen asks, “So when did you start to like me?” on their walk back to the hotel.

Tobin doesn’t feel quite so embarrassed when she blurts out the truth. “College.” 

Christen’s eyes go wide and her cheeks flush, but her smile is broad and genuine when she says, “But Kelley didn’t know then…”

Tobin shakes her head. “Kelley figured it out when I returned your phone that one day.”

Christen nods in recognition, and then she looks at Tobin with a gleam in her eye. “I have something to confess about that,” Christen says. 

Tobin raises her eyebrows, waits expectantly. 

“I kept hearing about how you were so smooth, how you had this way with girls and I- When I said that I could kiss you, I half hoped you’d try to be smooth with me and say something like, ‘Well go ahead’.” 

Tobin stops abruptly as Christen’s words hit her. 

Christen wanted-

She really meant-

And Tobin had just been a fumbling idiot and-

But now they’re out on a date and Christen has stopped and turned to face her, though she’s looking at her hands, fingers wringing together nervously, a blush on her cheeks visible from the nearby streetlamp. 

“You wanted me to kiss you?” 

“Technically I guess I wanted you to want me to kiss you.”

“Wanted?” Tobin echoes, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth as she steps closer to Christen, taking her hands in her own, and holding them, threading their fingers together. 

Christen looks at her with those pale green eyes that are so gorgeous they seem almost otherworldly, and her voice sounds a little husky when she says, “Want.” 

“Say it again,” Tobin invites, leaning in closer. 

Christen’s breath is hot on her lips when she says, “I could kiss you right now.”

“So do it,” Tobin replies. 

  
  


Tobin has a natural confidence, this easy charm when it comes to girls. She’s definitely used it to her advantage before. But she’s never had a girl- 

Nobody has ever meant so much at a first kiss as Christen does tonight, on an almost empty street between the bar and the hotel. Nobody has ever made her heart skip a beat quite like this. 

And maybe that’s why it takes Tobin a moment to adjust, a moment to remember that actually she is quite good at kissing, a moment to process that fact that Christen’s lips are soft and a little wet and currently pressed to her own. 

And then she kisses her back. She kisses her back like she’s been dreaming about it since college (because she has). She kisses her back and she swipes her tongue into her mouth and she slides her hands around Christen’s waist holding her tight, and Christen whimpers, full on whimpers into her mouth. 

She kisses her back and when she tries to break away, just for a moment, just to check in with Christen, Christen chases her, captures her lips again, and hums contentedly before she allows the kiss to end. 

Tobin’s fully aware that she’s grinning from ear to ear. Normally she wouldn’t. Not after a first kiss. Normally she’d play it cool, she’d just be chill. 

It’s possible, though, that Tobin needs to reevaluate her definition of normal when it comes to Christen.

“Wow,” Tobin breathes. 

Christen smiles back at her, a little shy, a little sultry, a lot sexy. “I could kiss you right now,” Christen says again. 

“Please.”

  
  
  



End file.
